About the blogger

I’ve spent every sum­mer of my life vis­it­ing the Rideau Lakes cot­tage that my par­ents built in 1972. I grew up watch­ing my mom fill the place with antiques, mostly pur­chased from auc­tion sales all over east­ern Ontario. I sup­pose it’s her taste that first nur­tured mine: If it’s old, I prob­a­bly like it. My ideal cot­tage week­end involves wak­ing up early on Sat­ur­day and hur­ry­ing to our local flea mar­ket to find a new trea­sure. It’s usu­ally some­thing vin­tage, of no great pur­pose other than it makes me happy to look upon it (and I have the milk-​​glass col­lec­tion, a sweet set of 1960s han­kies, and the most-​​awesome two-​​tiered ’70s chip bowl ever to prove it).

As an edi­tor at Cot­tage Life mag­a­zine, I’ve seen hun­dreds of cot­tages cov­er­ing a whole range of styles. And while my own tastes lie on the more tra­di­tional (and often quirkier) side, I’m equally impressed by the sophis­ti­cated mod­ern aes­thetic that has drifted ashore in cot­tage coun­try. I admire the dar­ing break from the tra­di­tional cottage-​​as-​​lodge look (bear rugs and hunter green plaid any­one?) to some­thing cleaner and more open, and very often more envi­ron­men­tally friendly. Cot­tage style—whether it be the design of the build­ing or the decor that fills it—is hugely varied.

I love it all. I’ve never been one to fol­low trends in design and decor; I just like what I like, and I try to make sure that every­thing in my per­sonal space is some­thing I love. This is espe­cially true at the cot­tage, the place that has given me my most pre­cious mem­o­ries, and where even the small­est, most util­i­tar­ian object can hold so much mean­ing (sort of like that chip bowl).

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